Using ringing data to inform the deployment of geolocators
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Light-level geolocators are increasingly used to study the migration of small birds. Thanks to their relatively low cost, they are particularly well-positioned to be deployed broadly across less well-financed and understudied regions of the world, such as the Africa. A main drawback of geolocators is the need to recapture equipped birds to retrieve the data. Therefore, maximizing the recapture rate is critical to the success of any geolocator study. Using the example of a geolocator study on the coast of Kenya on Red-capped Robin-chats, this paper demonstrates how the use of an ringing data can help optimize the deployment of geolocators, both in terms of how many birds to set out to equip, and when/which birds to equip to maximize recapture in the subsequent years. We found that ringing data can help accurately estimate how many geolocators to order and provides insights into which classes of birds (based on age, capture history, and timing within the season) are most likely to be recaptured.